Japan 2.0: Day 1 (Tokyo)

After over 16 hours of watching multiple Hollywood, Korean, and Chinese movies, listening to random podcasts and audiobooks, and eating questionable plane food, we finally landed in Tokyo at their Haneda Airport. The commute (by metro) from Haneda airport to our hotel was a short 30 minutes (much faster than if we flew into the Narita Airport).

Questionable “gyudon” on the plane

We had make reservations at the Park Hotel Tokyo in Minato-Ku. This is a very unique hotel featuring art work from various artists throughout its exhibition floors, in its corridors as well as in guest rooms. That’s right, you can pay a little extra to have a room with a unique painting on the walls! Unfortunately, our check-in process with not without its challenges. We had booked via TripAdvisor using the third party booking site HotelQuickly. Apparently, we were told our reservation had been cancelled by someone without our knowledge a few days prior. We were dumbfounded as we had already paid in full to HotelQuickly in advance. Later, we did some more research and found out that our case was not unique and that this had happened to many other customers of HotelQuickly. It definitely appeared very suspicious and concerning; I do not intend to book with this site again and would also be cautious when using any third party booking sites. To be safe, it is probably best to book directly with the hotel in the future. Fortunately, this hotel did have some rooms available and we were able to make a new reservation for a slightly more pricey room with a nice view of the Tokyo Tower. At least we have a place to stay! (Will deal with HotelQuickly later.)

Ramen Tradition

Per (Aaron’s) tradition, we went to Gogyo Ramen in Roppongi for their burnt miso ramen. See previous post for details. They ran out of gyoza so we tried their chicken karaage which tasted a lot better than it looked, especially with a squeeze of lemon. Once again, they did not have sake, so we had Suntory Premium Malt beer again. I noticed that the portion sizes, including their beer are definitely smaller compared to those in Canada. Good portion control.

Karaage @ GogyoBurnt miso ramen @ Gogyo

The Joys of Tokyo

On the way back to the metro station, we noticed many Western restaurants, including Shake Shack from the States. Looks like Roppongi is like the Itaewon of Tokyo. We stopped by a convenience store to pick up some toiletries. It’s nice to know that when traveling to Japan, we do not need to worry about forgetting to pack anything because it is very easy to buy most things while we are here.

Since it’s been more than 24 hours since we last slept, and with the fatty ramen broth and beer in our system, we were able to fall asleep quite easily tonight.